When you think your life is terrible think of Mike and Lori

When you think your life is terrible think of Mike and Lori from Redmond Oregon.

What kind of friend are you???
<hr style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="1"> <!-- / icon and title --><!-- message --> People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spritually. They may seem like a Godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die.
Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.
Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
Because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build'upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant, Thank you for being part of my life,
Whether you were a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

Author unknown


We have been waiting on some pretty important blood tests to come back on my wife, we just had our 14th wedding anniversary on 7/21/10. We have been together 20yrs though. Today we got a call from the Dr. And we were told he would not discuss on the phone what he found, just that the tests were very abnormal, and made us an appointment for tomorrow @ 3pm to discuss options or possible medications, They were looking for a couple life threatening auto immune disorders.
They have already diagnosed her with sjogrens disease, raynouds disease, G.E.R.D. And an has yet to be diagnosed with some sort of auto immune connective tissue disease. All they have been doing is treating the symptoms which mostly is pain. They have her up to 40mg oxycontin 2X's a day and 2 15 mg oxycodone up to 4 times a day. We just had to give up our insurance on her as I am on ss disability. And of the $1600.00 we get $650.00 goes for her insurance, the rest goes to my medicare insurance, car insurance, and groceries.
They just took my food stamps down from $367 to $16.00 as now that I have an "income" of $1,600.00 a month, that put us over some stupid limit. I really don't get it. I thought getting the disability would help us out, but now we are in a worse position then we were. Any type of health care reform will probably come too late for us to be able to keep our house. God forbid.







If you have seen the "what kind of friend are you" thread, ( Above)



Then you know we have been waiting for blood test results.
2nd, please forgive the length of this, I just need to get rid of some of this adrenaline and worry, well here it goes:
We got a call yesterday asking us to come in for the results of the test. When I asked for them, the nurse or receptionist said "I don't have the results in front of me and the Dr. Wants to go over your medication or treatment options". Now, I'm sorry, but I am not a stupid person, I have had so many surgeries since '07 and a major heart attack in '08, and X-rays upon X-Rays, MRI's, CT scans Flouroscopes, Ultrasounds for DVT's, been through a mis-diagnosis for bacterial meningitis for my wife and her CT's, mri's, endoscomies, colonoscopies, ultra sounds, and cervical cancer, radical hystorectomy @28, and the only time we haven't been given results over the phone is when my wife's mother came over to central Oregon to go to the Dr. As she refused to go to the Dr's in Seaside any more (they tried on 3 different occasions to prescribe her medications that not only could have, but according to the pharmacist would have had fatal consequences).

But I digress, the only other time that info would not be given on the phone was when she came over to go to our Dr. And found out she had stage 4 small cell lung cancer. Needless to say, neither of us slept well last night. A little history here: I was in a bad car wreck that left me disabled, I have 4 cadaver ligaments in my left(dominant) hand with 8 micro staples, fractured C-5 vertebrea that they fused together with C-6, so there is a plate and 2 screws, Shattered pelvis as my femur went through the pelvis and shattered it in 7 pieces, when they found me my foot was stuck underneath my armpit, so there are another 4 cadaver ligements 2 screws aand a plug, 2 plates and 9 screws held my pelvis together until it would heal enough to replace my hip, 3 Deep vein thrombosis clots and 7 superficial clots, and had a major heart attack two weeks before my hip replacement was supposed to happen, with about 15-20% damage to my heart, so I also got a stent put in my right coronary artery.

My wife had endometriosis and had 3 laproscope surgeries in our first 3 years together, along with bad pap smears and pre cancerous cells removed, also in the first three years we were together. We were trying to have a baby, but time was against us and her gynocologist suggested a hysterectomy, but there were other options if we still wanted to try for a baby, as the cells were pre cancerous, not cancer, so he made her come in every 3 months to have pap smears, the first time they did anything, they froze a section of her cervix, the second time they clipped part of her cervix out, the third time they did a cervical cone, (and removed 1/3 of her cervix) and told us it was against his better judgement but he saw how bad she wanted a baby, and then made her come in once a month.

The day before Christmas eve of our 4th year together we got a call to come in that day if possible as things have changed. I went with her and when he did his thing, he shook his head and asked me to look. The first thing I thought was ouch, the tools of his trade looked like some sort of 14th century torture devices. He asked me what I saw and it looked like kind of a yellowish spiderweb where the pigment of her insides had changed color. When I told him what I saw, he said correct, you are looking at the beginnings of cancer, and she was set up for a radical hysterectomy for the day after Christmas. She was only like 28 yrs old.

Boy did that Christmas suck. But after she healed she said she didn't realize exactly how much pain she had been in, and was afraid I would leave her to find somebody to have a baby with. I felt awful for her, and re assured her it was her I was in love with and God must have a different plan for us, and that I considered Colton, her son from her first marraige(we both had been through nasty divorces). Beside's I considered Colton my son anyway. I paid his insurance along with her's, I was in a really good union at the time, made good money and we were living together anyway. She had a radical hysterectomy the day after Christmas, they went in through her abdomen, instead of vaginally because he wanted to make sure the endometreosis had not spread, it had and was attached to her bladder and something else, I don't remember now.....it was such a long time ago.

Anyway, we got married and moved to Las Vegas, then after 6 years 10,000ft up in the rockies about an hour and 20 min. West of Colorado springs, after 1 winter, we decided that was not the place for us. Come the end of may of '02 we put the house on the market and then Colorado had its biggest fire it ever had. Started by a US Forrest worker that had a few problems in the head and wanted to be a hero. But she started that fire at the beginin of june, and in three days it grew big enough that all the insurance companies put moritoriums on increases of insurance, and made it impossible to get insurance until the fire was completely out. That was Dec 11th of '02 when the snow finally suffocated the fire completely out.

We moved back to OR as my sons father had just been diagnosed with brain cancer and was given 4-6 months, he made it 3 months and 28 days. Our house sold 5 days after the moritorium was lifted and we made a bee line back to seaside to help out, and get some father son time before it was too late. We knew we wanted to be on the east side of the mountains as we got used to the no rain thing. While in Vegas I learned A/C and Refrigeration and Commercial Restaurant equipment repair, so I looked for and got a good job over here with a great company that was geared toward family. I would be elegible for insurance in 3 months after starting, and they wanted me to start as soon as possible. Well we pretty much took the first house that fit our needs thinking we would buy back up to where we were after I got settled into the new job and got familiar with the area.

So we moved in and I started work, traveling to the coast every friday after work and coming back every sunday night. We did that every weekend until my sons dad passed. About a month and a half into it my wife started to have pain in the upper right quadrant area. We did our homework on the puter and she figured she needed her gallbladder out. I of course said she was over reacting and we made an appointment with our now GP. I took her to her appointment, he ordered an ultrasound and said yep, lets get that gall bladder out. We explained the insurance thing and he prescribe vicodene and told her that if the pain got to bad to get in immediately as it could get life threatening. She was making it and we set all up to have the surgery the day I was put on the company insurance. She still had pain but not much and she wrote it off.

Then we got the news about her mothers cancer, moved her in with us and took care of her for 2 1/2 yrs until she passed. 3 days later our dog passed. 1 year later she was diagnosed with raynouds syndrome, then sjogrens disease, which is an auto immune disease, then she was diagnosed with G.E.R.D. and I got into my wreck. So her hurts she didn't tell me about until I was on a walker and could at least get around, and her girlfriend that moved here from vegas started taking her to the dr. as she started having more and more pain. Rashes would show up and disappear by the next day. she would get a temperature and an hour later she would be like 97.4 degrees.

So they started looking for more auto immune diseases, the was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, then addisons disease, which was premature because the tests for that came back negative, then one dr. diagnosed her with lupus, that made sense to us as her mom had lupus too. so they sent us to ohsu and they said no to lupus, but she had celiacs disease, so we went gluetin free. and they did a colonoscopy and said no to celiacs, but she had an auto immune inflammatory connective tissue disease that they hadn't been able to name yet. Then she got a cold, and then what we thought was the flu, except her eye were sensitive to light, the came the headache which lasted a week, and she still had a low grade temp.

So we went to the dr. and he said she had meningitis and to go to the emergency room and she would call ahead and get them ready for a spinal tap. our dr. said it was viral and with some meds and time it would pass, but he wanted a spinal tap done to verify. At 4am the next morning we were sound asleep and the phone rang, it was the hospital and they said get my wife back immediately as she had bacterial menengitis and everyone she came in contact with needed to be watched and she could die suddenly from brain swelling.......That'll wake you up. We were told were to go and somebody would be waiting for us to take us to isolation. When we got there, nobody new what we were talking about and they had an 84 yr old volenteer take us up to here room.

While we instisted that he not come in contact with us and told them why and why didn't they know we were coming that it was there lab that called us. After we got to her room, a nurse came in and asked us what was wrong with her and when we told her we just got a call from the lab telling us to get her here as she had bacterial menengitis the nurse went white. called the head nurse on duty and all hell broke loose. They all gowned up put gloves and masks on and move her to a quarenteen room. They wouldnt come in the room and had me take her urine specimens to the door. ddidn't tell me to gown up or anything.
Then after about 30 minutes of just one nurse on the whole floor come in and get an iv started. She put another bag on the tree and I asked what it was and was told it was an antibiotic and then she sat there and sqeezed the contents in, as if she needed to get the whole thing in my wifes body in 30 seconds or so.....I'm thinking what the hec is going on, as I looked out of the room to see like 4 or 5 nurses standing outside her room with gloves and masks on but they wouldn't get closer then about 5' from the door, except that one nurse.
Then the ambulance came and took her to the next block to get an mri of the brain. meanwhile I was sitting in her room, kinda in shock when I looked up there is our GP telling me not to worry that she didn't have bacterial menengitis, it was viral and there fore not the big deal every one was making of it. How he knew that and every body else said it was bacterial was beyond me and it kind of made me mad, and then I lost it and went off on all the nurses, our GP, security, and the head nurse, telling everyone in the building they were all incompetant and nobody knew there head from a hole in the ground.

Well after about 6 hrs it was determined that she had viral menengitis and that a lab tech. that wasn't even trained yet was the one that took the blood samples, which by hospital standards and cdc standards were to come from at least three seperate areas. Well, this guy just took them all from the iv that was in her already. Then we started getting bills, and more bills. I got mad and got the cdc involved, the nursing association, and every dr. offic I could that would listen. They finally after ruining our credit reversed everything as it was all there fault, ya think?

I am sorry for rambling......nervous scared energy I guess. Any way, we went to her appointment today and the doctor told us that her pituitary gland isn't working and she is almost in a crisis and if she passes out to call 911 immediately and tell them she has secondary adrenal deffincency. It can be caused by one of two things. her auto immune disease is attacking her pituitary gland and they had better figure it out soon so they can stop the attack before it is destroyed as the body needs this gland to live, or she has a mass on her pituitary gland, and will need to have brain surgery, wheather the mass is benine or cancerous.

So...... if you aren't to tired from reading this or board or have just lost interest do to the length of this letter I am asking to please pray for my wife and our family. I know it say's God won't give you more then you can handle, but please Dear LORD, we have had enough medical issue's, we get it, we all need to learn, and lean on our Savior and know we have room to grow and be examples for others and none of us are sin free, and back sliding has been to most all of us at some point or another. We are trying our best to be our best, and if you have tried to tell us or show us something that we aren't getting, please, please, please put it right in front of us in the most obvious way that we cant mess up your design for us as soon as possible........please
Mike and Lori


update: NO MASS ON THE BRAIN This is both good and bad news as if there would have been a mass, it could have been removed through the nose, who would have thought .....brain surgery through the nose?
The bad part is that this means some sort of auto immune disease is destroying it at a rapid rate. The rate of decline of cortisol has suprised even the endocrinologist. He is going to be in touch with the mayo clinic, and her past Dr.s all 4 different rhuemetologists(sp). Also bringing in our GP who is the one that found her hyperthoroidism, which is now hypothyroidism, and also the Dr. that found the adrenal insufficency. They are treating her with corticosteroids...high doses, and often. As her cortisol levels have dropped even in the last 3 days. He told us to not get discouraged, as this is a big part of the puzzle, and the fact it is moving so fast "could" be a good thing. I am having a hard time with that one, although it seemed to help Lori, it worries me. Because even if it is a big piece of the puzzle, there are still missing pieces, I just pray they are all in the box and they figure it out in time. He seemed more worried that there wasn't a mass in his voice and mannerisms to me. Again, Lori didn't seem to notice and was just focusing on what he said about it being a big part of the puzzle. So, If you could, Please keep praying for my family, I don't know what I would do without her